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•Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) increases spending, even compared to credit cards.•Showing installment prices (e.g., 4 payments of $25) drives increased BNPL spending.•Installment prices do not impact spending with other payment modes (e.g., cards).•More installments or a smaller first installment further increases BNPL spending.•Offers opportunities for retailers and insights for policymakers to protect consumers. Buy-now-pay-later, a rapidly growing payment mode, facilitates short-term deferral of payment by several installments without interest or fees. Although consumers and payment providers claim that buy-now-pay-later influences spending, existing research does not fully explain how or why. Purchase transaction data and a series of experiments demonstrate greater consumer spending with buy-now-pay-later compared to other payment modes. This research contributes an underlying process that explains how and why buy-now-pay-later increases consumer spending. The presentation of installment prices (i.e., the amount paid per installment) with buy-now-pay-later lowers consumers’ perception of purchase expensiveness, which increases spending. However, presenting installment prices does not affect spending with other payment modes. Furthermore, the number of installments, the magnitude of the first installment, and the presence of the installment price moderate the effect of buy-now-pay-later, demonstrating how installment prices affect consumer spending. Taken together, the findings provide opportunities for retailers to increase consumers’ spending and actionable insights for policymakers to protect consumers.

Purpose Online retailers have become gradually popular to offer consumers installment payment services in the past few years. This paper aims to study how to determine the duration and rate of installment payment services, as well as the price of products to increase online retailers’ profits. Design/methodology/approach By modeling the utility functions, the behavior of consumers for strategic choosing the payment method and payment timing is analyzed. Thus, the market segments are obtained through the comparison of the consumer’s utilities. Combined with the given assumptions, the installment payment strategies for online retailers is investigated. This paper focuses on the impact of installment payment services on consumers’ purchasing behavior and online retailers’ profits by modeling and comparative analysis. No installment payment service as a benchmark, it is demonstrated whether online retailers can obtain more profits by offering installment payment services or what are the applicable conditions for installment payments. Findings If the installment payment service is offered, online retailers can gain more profits and need to adopt appropriate strategies based on different market conditions. During the depression or the peak shopping season, online retailers should take the strategy of free installment rate, and moderately increasing the product price of no installment service. When market demand is stable or during non-peak season, online retailers need to set a higher installment rate and maintain the product price without installment service. Finally, online retailers should determine the maximum duration of installments they can afford based on own risk control cost and allow consumers to freely choose the length of the installment within the duration limit. Originality/value First, the authors deeply analyze consumers’ payment and purchase behavior when the online retailer offers the installment payment service. Then, it is theoretically proved why many online retailers have offered installment payment services to consumers from a profit perspective. Finally, this paper proposes the optimal duration of installments, installment rate and product price in different market environments for online retailers, to provide theoretical basis and managerial insights for the development of installment payment service in online shopping.

This paper derives accurate and efficient analytic approximations for the prices of both European and American continuous-installment call and put options. The solutions are in the form of series in time-to-expiry with explicit formulae for the coefficients provided. Unlike other solutions for installment options, no Laplace inverses are needed, and there is no need to solve complex, recursive systems or integral equations. The formulae provided fast yield and accurate solutions not just for the prices, but also for the critical boundaries. We also compare the solutions with those obtained using an existing method and show that it surpasses it delivering more correct option prices and critical stock prices.

A consolidated research line in Brazil identified the proxies for determining the tax aggressiveness of companies listed on the B3 stock exchange. However, none of these studies identified the instrument used by Brazilian companies to carry out tax aggressiveness. Thus, our research seeks to fill this gap by demonstrating that fiscal aggressiveness results from the Brazilian tax complexity, that providing prerogatives to avoid or delay tax payments. Besides, this study is the first accounting study to demonstrate that special installments reduce the actual value of taxes owed by taxpayers, encouraging them to be tax aggressive. Through the foundations of Game Theory, this research demonstrates the cost-benefit of tax aggressiveness in maximizing the profit of tax avoidance. We examined the best strategic decisions in the tax avoidance game concerning the tax complexity and special installments experienced in Brazil. In this game, the only NASH equilibrium is tax avoidance since it is the only option with a chance of remuneration. Therefore, this research contributes to understanding business behavior concerning the Brazilian tax system and provides subsidies to encourage reform of the current tax complexity.

Type of the article: Research Article AbstractThis paper examines the influence of reinsurance strategies and insurance liabilities on the performance and market valuation of Jordanian insurance firms. Using panel data from 2010 to 2023 and employing fixed-effects regression and mediation analysis, we test whether Excess Loss Installments (ELI) mediate these relationships. Based on a balanced panel of 16 listed Jordanian insurers over the period 2010–2023, the study applies SPSS, EViews, and SmartPLS to conduct fixed-effects regression and mediation analysis. The findings reveal that a higher reinsurers’ share is significantly associated with lower return on assets (ROA) (β = –0.18, p < 0.05), suggesting that excessive risk cession may erode underwriting profitability. In contrast, insurance contract liabilities have a strong positive impact on ROA (β = 0.29, p < 0.01) and firm value measured by Tobin’s Q (β = 0.32, p < 0.01), indicating that prudent technical reserve accumulation enhances financial strength and investor perception. Correlation analysis further revealed a negative association between reinsurance share and ROA (r = –0.21), while liabilities showed a moderate positive correlation with Tobin’s Q (r = 0.36). Mediation analysis showed that ELI does not play a statistically significant mediating role in the relationship between the main variables. In some models, ELI even had a minor negative indirect effect on firm value.These findings emphasize the importance of optimizing reinsurance structures and liability management. For Jordanian insurers, effective risk transfer must be balanced against profitability goals. Regulators and firm managers should revisit the strategic use of advanced mechanisms like ELI to reduce inefficiencies and strengthen financial outcomes. Acknowledgment(s)This research was funded through the annual funding track by the Deanship of Scientific Research, from the vice presidency for graduate studies and scientific research, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia [Grant no. KFU253235].

A consolidated research line in Brazil identified the proxies for determining the tax aggressiveness of companies listed on the B3 stock exchange. However, none of these studies identified the instrument used by Brazilian companies to carry out tax aggressiveness. Thus, our research seeks to fill this gap by demonstrating that fiscal aggressiveness results from the Brazilian tax complexity, that providing prerogatives to avoid or delay tax payments. Besides, this study is the first accounting study to demonstrate that special installments reduce the actual value of taxes owed by taxpayers, encouraging them to be tax aggressive. Through the foundations of Game Theory, this research demonstrates the cost-benefit of tax aggressiveness in maximizing the profit of tax avoidance. We examined the best strategic decisions in the tax avoidance game concerning the tax complexity and special installments experienced in Brazil. In this game, the only NASH equilibrium is tax avoidance since it is the only option with a chance of remuneration. Therefore, this research contributes to understanding business behavior concerning the Brazilian tax system and provides subsidies to encourage reform of the current tax complexity.

Gene therapies offer potentially life-changing benefits for patients, but their unprecedented high prices exacerbate challenges for reimbursement. Payers must confront high budgetary impacts, as a large up-front payment for each patient makes it difficult to predict and absorb costs. Payers also face considerable clinical uncertainty, as evidence for efficacy and durability is limited at approval. Alternative payment models may address these reimbursement problems and ensure equitable patient access. We developed a taxonomy of possible payment mechanisms for gene therapies, including installments, risk pools, reinsurance, pricevolume agreements, expenditure caps, subscriptions, outcomes-based payments and rebates, warranties, population outcomes-based agreements, and coverage with evidence development. We illustrate how these payment models take three main approaches: amortization, which mitigates initial budget impact by spreading payments over time; risk spreading, which makes budgets more predictable by pooling costs with other payers or capping costs based on expected volume; and performance-based payment, which addresses clinical uncertainty by tying prices to patient- or population-level outcomes. We discuss each payment model, its advantages and challenges, and considerations for US payers.

Nigeria is endowed with abundant sunshine year-round; thus, solar PV would solve the environmental problems associated with petrol-powered generators. However, it is unclear whether households are willing to transition. Thus, we analyze households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for solar PV under four scenarios: (i) WTP when a solar PV is complemented with a generator, (ii) WTP when a solar PV completely displaces a generator, (iii) WTP when a solar PV is complemented with a generator, plus a subsidy, and (iv) WTP when a solar PV completely displaces a generator, given a subsidy. We find that WTP for solar PV is higher when it can displace generators completely. Subsidy plus monthly rather than upfront payment would scale up the adoption of solar PV by about 6 per cent. Furthermore, the cost benefit analysis results show that solar PV investment is profitable. Thus, there is a need to implement policies aimed at scaling up the energy transition.

Exponential growth bias is the pervasive tendency to linearize exponential functions when assessing them intuitively. We show that exponential growth bias can explain two stylized facts in household finance: the tendency to underestimate an interest rate given other loan terms, and the tendency to underestimate a future value given other investment terms. Bias matters empirically: More-biased households borrow more, save less, favor shorter maturities, and use and benefit more from financial advice, conditional on a rich set of household characteristics. There is little evidence that our measure of exponential growth bias merely proxies for broader financial sophistication.